


What was omitted

by kingwellsjaha



Category: The Alienist (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Joanna The Journalist, brief mention of discrimination and privilege, deals with what the narrative dropped, does that make it canon compliant?, given that it is defining for both characters in one way or another, if it could have technically happened, namely: helen sumner and dr markoe, written around canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:29:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27619073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingwellsjaha/pseuds/kingwellsjaha
Summary: Here is a set of truths:Libby Hatch, also known as Elspeth Hunter, will be electrocuted for her crimes.Dr. Markoe runs a hospital in New York for unfortunate women in which he forcefully sterilizes them against their will and gets rid of their children.Detective Sergeant Marcus Isaacson was killed by Libby Hatch’s partner Frank Knox, also known as Goo Goo Knox, as he was trying to stop them from abducting Libby Hatch’s daughter.Now all of these things are true. They have happened or they will soon. They are also connected like a web. It’s all clear from afar, yet Joanna still struggles to make sense of it. But she has to, she at least has to try, so she picks up the pen.aka. Joanna Crawford tries to make sense of season 2.
Relationships: Marcus Isaacson/Joanna Crawford
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	What was omitted

**Author's Note:**

> now that the fandom has died because of a... let's say mixed to unsatisfacatory finale, let me drop my niche content, my #hot take.
> 
> i have no excuse for this and i totally get why people might be confused by this, but hey, marcus looked at her wistful once. i always felt like joanna deserved to be fleshed out and like get her own perspective and by the end of season two, i even felt that marcus deserved this, so here we go.
> 
> i basically follow canon, with ONE important iteration that will become very obvious: like with dr. kreizler, joanna mostly keeps the group at a distance calling them all by their last name. i use it here to make a point, but i also think given her introduction in season one that this made sense.

It’s not entirely true that journalists only care about the truth. Journalists like all great writers tell stories. They create narratives. It’s not just about how many people were at the rally in front of Martha Napp’s hearing, but what it means. Some things will be omitted in the process, some things magnified. As a journalist you have to decide what to focus on. It’s a delicate process.

Joanna has gotten good at weaving these narratives—good enough at least to work for the New York Times, even if only unofficially. She knows what to enhance and why. She knows how to put her thumb on a spot and press until it breaks under pressure, how to reveal the structures lying underneath the surface.

And yet she struggles, when trying to turn this into a concise story.

Here is a set of truths:

Libby Hatch, also known as Elspeth Hunter, will be electrocuted for her crimes.

Dr. Markoe runs a hospital in New York for unfortunate women in which he forcefully sterilizes them against their will and gets rid of their children.

Detective Sergeant Marcus Isaacson was killed by Libby Hatch’s partner Frank Knox, also known as Goo Goo Knox, as he was trying to stop them from abducting Libby Hatch’s daughter.

Now all of these things are true. They have happened or they will soon. They are also connected like a web. It’s all clear from afar, yet Joanna still struggles to make sense of it. But she has to, she at least has to try, so she picks up the pen.

* * *

Let's start with the easiest connection: Dr. Markoe and Libby Hatch. She had worked at his hospital as a nurse and had abducted one of the children from there. How was it possible that she will die and Dr. Markoe will go free?

The answer is simple: Dr. Markoe is a man of great renown with friends in the right places. Rich men (and women) support his doing, even if it does not agree with their moral standing. He gets rid of their problem, he “cleanses” the city.

Libby on the other hand unnerves them. A woman that abducts children of rich folk and kills them. They don’t understand her—no better—they don’t care to understand her. They have cast her as the unspeakable evil detached from society, instead of being a result of it. To get rid of her is to get rid of the problem in their eyes, and when she is dead, they can close their eyes and sleep in peace again.

It’s not fair. It’s one of these things that leaves a bitter taste in Joanna’s mouth. She had noticed early on that Dr. Markoe was slipping away. Originally she had thought that Dr. Kreizler would deal with him. She might not like him, but she had thought him capable, but then Dr. Kreizler had gotten caught up in his own personal drama—very typical of him she had to say—and suddenly it seemed that Dr. Markoe was going to face no consequences, even further a young woman by the name of Helen Sumner was still in his care and her baby still nowhere to be found.

It was clear then that something needed to be done, she said as much to Marcus—at that time she still called him Detective Sergeant Isaacson—or had she already started to call him Mr. Marcus?—and given her profession and general sense of justice, she felt compelled to do the something. Marcus agreed to help—here comes the other connection, see it’s easy to connect these truths, isn’t it? Now she just has to continue the thread, weave the story to a satisfying conclusion.

* * *

The easiest part was to get a hold of Helen Sumner funny enough. Dr. Markoe had put her in another hospital, filling her with enough pain medicine to keep her shut. They got her to a safe place and waited a few days for the medicine to leave her body. She kicked and screamed, shook and sweat. When she came down she had only one question: where is my child? Where is my baby?

It was impossible to console her, but at least now Joanna was able to ask her a few questions, not that Miss Sumner’s answers helped much. The medicine had attacked her memory. She had trouble telling one consistent story: she had been put into the hospital by her lover Richard Osgood, who had most likely known what would happen to her. There she had given birth. She didn’t know the gender of the child, not even what it looked like. They had told her that it had died during birth, but she—and Joanna—doubted that. That was all. Apart from that she cried against Joanna’s shoulder and chastised herself for being so foolish. As a reliable witness against Dr. Markoe she was useless. Any attorney could poke holes into her testimony and discredit her as a liable witness.

But this was also not important. Joanna was sure back then that if she just poked hard enough, she would find more witnesses and one of them would be reliable. What was important was the child and its whereabouts, and trying to gain any information about that proved to be nearly impossible. If the child was still alive—and given that it had been separated from its mother after birth, it was very likely that it was not—it was no longer in the Lying-In Hospital.

Quickly she made a list of orphanages in New York City and their patronages, trying to find any connection between them and Dr. Markoe. Wryly Cyrus asked her if she ever slept, as she hovered over the list one uneventful night at the bar. _When I was your age I used to live_ , he continued and she had to bite her tongue not to quickly retort that unlike her he had never been safe at home or that he wouldn’t like her to live a little, given how he monitors every man in the bar closely that has ever dared to lay an eye on her.

But she had not. She had bit her tongue and given the list to Mr. Lucius and Marcus instead. They had looked at it in confusion. _Now what shall we do with this_ , Lucius had asked. Despite the fact that both were cops they didn’t really think like one, too caught up in their laboratory to understand the true extent of their power. Joanna isn’t sure if this made them more likeable or more dangerous.

 _These are the orphanages which are in some way connected to Dr. Markoe_ , she explained, _I think someone should visit them and ask them if any children have been taken in from the Lying-In Hospital in the last weeks_. 

Mr. Lucius sighed. _We really don’t have the time…_ , he started, and he was right. As the only two specialists in their field, they had to handle every case the police deemed worthy of their attention.

Marcus, however, was not one to quarrel, he nodded. _I will try as soon as I have the time_ , he promised.

 _I will try and gather witness testimony against Dr. Markoe. This man will not go unpunished._ She had not meant to sound this harsh, but she did all the same. Marcus laughed at that.

 _Dr. Markoe doesn’t know what a powerful enemy he has made,_ he said jokingly. She could not tell if he was just teasing her or making fun of her. It was hard with Marcus sometimes, but in this case she chose to think that he had reacted in kind. There was some sort of appreciation in his eyes as he looked at her.

She raised her chin and straightened her back. Dr. Markoe indeed had not.

* * *

So for a few weeks they worked like that. Mr. Lucius and Marcus went from orphanage to orphanage, in their free time no less. They showed their badge and asked questions. And she went from witness to witness in between working at the bar, studying and helping Miss Howard, trying to gather information. If there would be no trial, there would at least be a story to be told, she told herself. She had already imagined the headline in the New York Times.

The witnesses, however, were all hesitant. The women who had been at the hospital were tongue tied and only after an hour of constant ministration they opened up a little, that was when they talked to her at all.

Colleen Ledwidge was her best lead, also a former lover of Osgood—in her mind Joanna had written down Osgood’s name as well. If she was about to come for Dr. Markoe, she could come for Osgood as well for good measure. Colleen at least dared to talk, although her experience at the hospital had been different from everyone elses. Joanna wasn’t completely sure if Miss Colleen hated the doctor or not. When she asked the question where the children disappeared to, Colleen rolled her eyes.

 _No where,_ she stated, _I understand that your folks want it to be different, but the truth is children die at birth_. _It happens fairly often. And not all children had died: Martha Napp’s had indeed survived until it was taken._ Colleen had a point, but Joanna wasn’t convinced.

 _Listen Miss_ , Colleen finally said, _I understand your moral inquiries, but what do you think will happen if the hospital has to close? There will still be women in need. They will need a place to go._

 _I agree,_ Joanna stated after a pause _, but do you really want them to go to a place like that?_

Colleen looked at her for the longest time before sighing. _Look, the world is not fair like that._

Joanna had to agree with that, and she still does, now even more so really: the world isn’t fair.

* * *

Mr. Lucius and Marcus also came up empty handed.

 _A lot of babies come and go_ , Marcus explained. _It’s impossible to keep track. Or Dr. Markoe knows how to cover his tracks, both is possible._

They were at the bar, he had come by after a shift. He turned the bourbon in his hand as he talked. She was looking at her glass of water, trying not to let the emptiness swallow her.

 _You never drink_ , he stated after a while into the silence. She looked up at that, surprised that he noticed. Her eyes fell onto her glass again.

 _My father was a preacher_ , she explained. And a former alcoholic, she thought, though she omitted that part. _He forbade the consumption of alcohol in our house._

And for some reason she had picked up the habit as well, even though she didn’t agree with her father in many ways. Maybe it was one of the only things she was still willing to do to please him.

Marcus laughed at that. _I see, he probably isn't too happy about you being here then._

He was right with that, but it was more than the alcohol. Her father had never liked Cyrus, calling him a crook and a murderer. Until she was fifteen, Joanna had believed him, like children tend to do. Only slowly she had started to question his narrative, but only really after her father’s death she had tried to establish contact. Cyrus had already lived with Dr. Kreizler then.

 _He wouldn’t_ , she finally stated and in the way that Marcus froze, she could see that he had noted the ‘would not’ instead of a ‘does not’. She could stop it here, but for some reason she felt compelled to further say: _My father was a complicated man_.

 _Parents always are_ , Marcus agreed with a nod. She watched him closely as he took another sip. His father was dead too, just like his mother, but the death of his mother had been more recent or so it seemed. At least that’s what she had made out of the conversation between him and his brother. Maybe that was why he had noted the ‘would not’ so easily. She nodded and took another sip of water.

 _Can we not at least try and find Helen Sumner’s baby?_ She finally asked after prolonged silence. Marcus looked up from his drink. It seemed like she had interrupted his train of thought. He looked at her for a long time and then sighed.

 _We do not even know if it is a boy or a girl_ , he stated. _Children this young look basically interchangeable._

She pursed her lips, hating that he was right.

* * *

And this is how it ended. There were of course a few other instances, but it would’ve been a waste of time to write about them in detail. She visited the detective agency and asked Miss Bitsy and Miss Milly for help, but even with that they did not get very far.

Most people in connection to Dr. Murkoe lacked the social capital to go against him or supported him outright. The only person strong and capable enough to do so would have been Dr. Kreizler and again the man was indisposed and in his own personal crisis. A fact that angered Joanna more than it probably should have. It was not Dr. Kreizler’s fault alone of course, the problem was that to solve the matter someone with social capital and renown needed to step up and go against Dr. Markoe. Dr. Kreizler simply had too much power with little to no actual responsibility. Joanna was certain that she would’ve been unable to live up to it too, if she had held power like that.

But Dr. Kreizler had always cast himself as a righteous man, a champion of the poor—not noticing that his kindness had thorns, that his philanthropy showcased his privilege. She still remembered the way he had bound Cyrus to himself and pretended as if the two could be friends. (And although she probably should, she cannot forgive him for that. It’s the tiny bit of her father, righteous and proud, that she just can't let go.)

They found the Spanish child because of course they do. Joanna was happy, but at the same time she could not help but be bitter.

She likes Miss Howard—so much so that she had started to call her Sara—but like with Dr. Kreizler (and Mister John Moore), there is something distinctly rich about her and the world she preoccupies. A fine invisible line between her that separated them. And sometimes it was very obvious that Sara was not aware of it, too preoccupied with the line that separated her from Dr. Kreizler and Mr. Moore.

* * *

She is getting distracted, most likely because she is angry and sad. That always makes her judgemental and bitter. It isn’t like she always notices the fine line between them all. On some days she is so preoccupied with other things that she has no time noticing, but on other days they seem so much stronger. On the day they found the Spanish baby, she didn’t think of the lines, the structures that bind this world, she simply rejoiced when Marcus came by to tell her. At least one victory in a sea full of defeats, but now as she tries to finish this, as she tries to weave the narrative, she can see the irony.

To finally end this story, the conclusion is rather simple: The world is unfair. Libby Hatch will be killed and condemned because she scares society, Dr. Markoe is too powerful to be destroyed. The fact that she scares society more than Dr. Markoe is ironic, but there is not much that can be done about it. And well Marcus, Marcus as a cop had gotten caught up in the mix of this conflict and died for it, as cops do. At least he had died quickly, from all she had heard.

It’s a sad story. It’s a lament, simple as that and those are not published in the newspapers. At least not if they are written by people like her.

But that is all there is to it. She can put down the pen now.

* * *

But it’s not.

(She picks up the pen again.)

The other thing about journalism is that it is not overtly interested in the personal, at least if the personal does not contribute anything to the story. An article is not a biography, it might state the opinions and feelings of people, but it has to put them in context, ground them in reality.

And in this case it doesn’t really matter. It’s nothing really, another detail that she probably for honesty reasons should state in the beginning of her story, although she finds it silly in this case. It is not important enough to be noted, she finds.

Everyone in the detective agency calls each other by their first name, a praxis that Joanna finds unreasonable. She is not friends with these people, so why pretend? So when Mr. Lucius and Marcus initially introduced themselves to her, she made her boundaries very clear.

Marcus was the one to overstep it, of course.

 _Well Miss Joanna_ , he had said or something in that vein, she can’t remember what exactly he had said. She had intersected quickly.

 _It’s Miss Crawford_ , she had stated, rendering Marcus speechless. He opened and closed his mouth looking at her.

Then he had nodded and a playful smile had come to his lips again. _Of course, Miss Crawford…_

Ironically, she of course could not call him Mr. Isaacson, at least not for long. At some point she was fed up with both Mr. Lucius and Marcus looking at her whenever she called for one of them, so she begrudgingly started to call them Mr. Lucius and Mr. Marcus and prayed that they would continue to call her Miss Crawford, which they did. Things could have continued to go on like this, but of course because she makes note of it here, they didn’t.

They didn’t continue like this.

* * *

This is hard. She has to scratch out sentence after sentence, uncertain where she wants this to go. There are two problems here: deciding where to go with this, but also her fuzzy memory. It’s hard to bring this into the appropriate time line.

She just knows this: at some point it became common practice for her to stop by the laboratory of the Isaacsons for a quick chat. Sometimes she talked to them both, sometimes only one of them was there and the times that she was alone with Marcus are the clearest in her memory. Mostly because he turned it into a show, instead of discussing the matter at hand, he had to always demonstrate something: how this chemical reacted to the other chemical, how this substance looked under the microscope, a very funny fact about bones.

She wanted to be sensible about this, but there was something fun about being entertained, about watching magnesium burn. So she indulged him and that was her mistake.

Because then she started to notice something else: his eyes on her, always sparring her a glance when no one was looking. He was weirdly discreet about the whole matter, more than she had initially thought he was capable of being, but it was also highly likely that he knew that he had to be discreet in this instance. Society has a lot of anxieties around men, even Jewish men, looking at Black women like that.

At first, the looks had annoyed her. She was more than her physical form and she feared that it would mean that he would take her less seriously.

But he didn’t. Of course he still teased her. He made quick remarks and believed himself to be oh-so witty, but she noticed him looking at her that way, when she believed herself to make a point of her own. He would watch her closely and then a soft smile would form on his lips. And she had to admit she got a bit addicted to that smile, to the quirk of his lips, a silent form of appreciation and awe—or maybe she is taking it too far here. A smile is a smile. There is not a lot to it, but that’s how it made her feel. Like she was appreciated. It seemed to her that he saw all her intellect, all her curiosity and looked at it in awe.

* * *

(She is writing this quickly now, does not dare to look back twice. Her heart keeps beating faster.)

She called him Marcus by accident. At this point it was bound to happen. They were arguing about something in the laboratory. Something about Libby Hatch and the children. He had made a cocky remark, she had retorted, it had only deteriorated from there.

And then at some point, when she had been fully annoyed it had slipped of her tongue.

 _God Marcus_ , she had said, _do you ever stop?_

Then her eyes had grown wide, as wide as his. And they both had looked at each other stunned, surprised at what she had said. She bit her lips.

 _I mean_ , she said, wondering if she should correct herself, but it was too late for that. If anything it would’ve been on him to correct her now and maybe he should have done it, mirroring how she had done it during their first initial meeting—It’s Mr. Marcus, Miss Crawford—but he simply started to smile and it felt like he had won. What exactly he had won, she was not sure, he probably didn’t know either, but both knew that he had. And nothing else was important.

And then he called her Joanna, way later. The night they caught Libby. He had come by the bar to inform her about the developments. It had been quite late, she does not remember why she had still been up. The bar had been closed hours ago, but something had kept her downstairs.

Like usual he had told her the news and she had handed him a bourbon and then they had talked about something else, even though it was late and they had to get up early the next day, despite the fact that there was nothing really to discuss. They found topics to discuss. Marcus like her had the ability to see the fine lines that had been drawn around them. _His name_ , he once had told her, _his parents had chosen from a Shakespeare play_.

She had laughed at that.

 _They thought it would help me rise up in society, Abraham as a name is more frowned upon_ , he stated and her smile had faltered. Then he shrugged his shoulders. _Sadly my surname is still Isaacson so it helped only that much_.

And this was how their conversations went, they talked about socialism, marxism. Like with Sara, Joanna could feel a fine line between them, but Marcus for one did not ignore it. They talked about Plessy vs. Ferguson and Cyrus’ decision to buy a bar in the part of town controlled by Irish gangsters.

 _It was foolish_ , she said at one point, _I advised him against it, but it’s Cyrus, he just won’t listen. The Irish gangsters hate our guts and they don’t care if a weird eccentric doctor is his close ally and friend._

She had expected Marcus to laugh at that, but he looked at her with a serious expression. She had sighed.

 _This is why I have come_ , she finally confessed, _I wanted to make sure that he is alright. But don’t tell him that. He would hate it. He always believes that he is the one looking out for me._

* * *

She is getting distracted again. It's so easy to hide behind words. Actually she wants to write about the time he called her Joanna. Like with her it had been a slip of the tongue, but not because they were arguing.

It was just late, Libby Hatch was in custody and he was tired. She had noted early on that the Isaacsons didn’t sleep much. He had rubbed his eyes and then said: _The thing is this, Joanna_ -

Then he had frozen, his eyes apologetically on her. In broad daylight, she might have reacted differently, but it was dark outside, Helen Sumner’s child still nowhere to be found and she was tired. So she simply smiled and cut the apology that hastily left his mouth short.

_It’s alright, Marcus._

He raised his eyebrows at that, probably wondering what this meant. Had she just invited him to call her Joanna whenever? Would that be the way they addressed each other from that moment onward? Joanna didn’t know it herself, all she knew was that she was done with this charade.

So she stepped towards him and raised her eyebrows as if she wanted to challenge him and perhaps she wanted to. At least she felt quite daring. His eyes moved down her face. She still remembers his pupils growing wide.

He looked at her in the same way he had looked at her when she had come to his flat the night they found the Spanish girl. She still remembers hammering against his door, yelling, not caring what his landlord would say. She had already faced Hearst that evening and the entire upper class of New York. A landlord could not touch her. He opened the door in an open shirt, his belt not yet closed, blinking and confused he had let her in. She had not even cared about his disheveled state. _Miss Howard in the abandoned house... Dr. Kreizler and Mr. Moore were already on their way… they need back up_. Had she called him Marcus then? Or Mr. Isaacson? Or Mr. Marcus? She isn’t sure, the rush of adrenaline had washed away most of what had transpired.

All she really remembers were his eyes on her, slowly moving up and down her body. If she was trying to make sense of it now, she would’ve said it was a mixture of his state and her sudden appearance at his flat. A place she had not been before, a border breached. And in the middle of the night, quite scandalous her father wouldn’t have approved at all. At some point the gravity of the situation had hit him though. His eyes had widened and quickly he had turned around and woken Mr. Lucius. They had walked down the streets together afterwards. _I hope everything will be alright_ , she had said and with that they had parted ways.

But in the bar his expression could not be explained by her appearance, here in this room her existence was an unquestionable constant.

She knew what he was about to do, she wasn’t naive, but she still had not decided how to react. Should she take a step away and let it slide? Or should she look at him in confusion as he approaches her? ( _Mr. Isaacson, what do you think you are doing?_ Or better, more honest: _Marcus, who do you think you are?_ ) 

In the end when he leaned down to kiss her, she did neither. Her hands moved up to his neck and she pulled him closer. He tasted like bourbon and smelled of sweat and cologne. It was not a bad kiss, not at all, maybe a bit overwhelming. When they parted, both were panting. Joanna’s eyes moved quickly to the windows, just to make sure that no one had seen them, but the streets were surprisingly empty for once.

She breathed in deeply in an attempt to sort her thoughts. Then she took his hand. _Let’s go upstairs_ , she heard herself say.

Only for one moment Marcus seemed to contemplate it, clearly thinking about Cyrus and what potentially would happen if he caught them in the act. Joanna did not want to think about it, he would probably be very angry and chase Marcus out of the house. But he was also a deep sleeper and her bedroom far enough away from his.

In the end urgency outweighed fear, he nodded and she, after putting away their glasses, led him up stairs.

* * *

The things that happened after do not need to be described in detail. Marcus laughed when he entered her room and saw her bed filled with beds. She had the bad habit of sleeping on top of them. They had to put them aside first and the act flustered her.

She was not one to lose her nerves easily and her pride forbade her to lose it over something like this. But defiance and pride could not hide the fact that she was not well-versed in what was about to unfold. Unlike him, who touched her with an ease. She melted into his touch. For all his teasing, his pride and quick remarks, she had to say that he had the ability to make her feel at ease.

Quickly she forgot the things that would have embarrassed her otherwise: their naked state, the close proximity to Cyrus, the reality outside of the window. She forgot it, just as much as reasoning or wit. She became someone else in these late hours of the night and it was amazing. It was just what she had needed.

He left in the early hours of the morning before she woke and died the next night.

There is no way to make sense of that. It feels like a sentence cut short without an ending, still lingering in the air. You wait for it to end, but it won’t. It renders her speechless at first. No tears leave her eyes—and for what would they leave her for? For a man who had kissed her once? For a lost moment in the night? She had not given him her heart, it had not even really started yet. It had been nothing really.

But when she fell asleep the night after Cyrus had told her the news, she felt him on her skin, his hands gently pressing against her thighs. A part of him lingered, it still does, and she is unable to make it leave.

She cried then.

* * *

Fiction writers are not concerned with the truth or reality. And that’s all fine and well. Their stories are about themes. They convey messages or emotional journeys that the reader can follow along. Now a story can end however it wants to end, but by the end one should be satisfied one way or another.

She has never been much of a fiction teller, all her life she had been concerned with the truth, what to cut, what to enhance. She had pointed her magnifying glass at dark places and made them visible, but she picks up the pen now:

And after some meticulous research she finds the location of Helen Sumner’s child—it’s a healthy little girl with rosy cheeks, and when Joanna holds her in her hands she giggles. Helen Sumner breaks out in tears, when Joanna hands her over. "Oh my baby," she says, "my sweet little baby." She sings her songs and laughs and maybe Dr. Markoe still walks freely on this earth, but for a fleeting moment there is justice. Joanna writes his name into her notebook and circles it. She is not done with him yet, some day she will do what Dr. Kreizler was unable to do and bring him down. He doesn’t even know what a powerful enemy he has made.

(Even in her imagination, she cannot defeat him. Joanna isn’t quite sure if this reflects badly on her imagination or on reality.)

Afterwards she makes her way to the apartment of the Isaacsons. Lucius opens it. He is too caught up in his own feelings to question why she has come (or he does know or he doesn’t care.) She is led to Marcus’s room. And he looks ghastly, he looks almost dead.

For a moment she hesitates before she enters, uncertain if she is crossing a boundary, if she is annoying him, but then a slight smirk falls onto his lips and he cocks his head.

“I found the child,” she says as soon as the door closes behind her.

He smiles at that. “Did you now?”

She sits down on the chair next to the bed and watches him. He looks so pale and fragile and she finds it funny how little it takes to destroy the human body. She wants to reach out her hand and touch his skin, make sure that it’s real, but she doesn’t, too afraid to make this about something that it shouldn’t be.

It’s him that takes her hand in the end, squeezing it gently. He doesn’t let go, even when Lucius enters. They say nothing because they don’t have to, a simple smile is enough. Like all great stories it’s also the beginning of something new, the potential of something. A sentence that promises another one, and then another…

With a sigh, she puts down the pen.

**Author's Note:**

> funny enough, if marcus would have survived, i wouldn't have let him get it on. he had his share in season one, but then he died and i thought to myself "okay, you are allowed to get this."
> 
> anyway, thoughts, feelings? i barely scratched the surface of what i imagine joanna to be like and i still have so many thoughts on her.


End file.
